I reach the top of the stairs and come to several closed doors. I stop and listen, waiting to hear the noise again, and when I hear it I continue quietly until I’m standing outside one of the closed doors—one which I assume is the bedroom, but of course can’t be certain.
I grip the umbrella tighter and take a deep breath as I open it.
The door opens quietly, no horror movie creak or anything jumping out on me, but that doesn’t stop me from wanting to pee myself. I peer around the room and hear movement from the small bathroom in the corner.
I let out my breath slowly and slide myself along the wall until I reach the doorway, keeping my umbrella/badass-zombie-killing-weapon as close to my chest as possible and ready to be wielded at a moment’s notice. I peer around the doorway and see someone moving by the window. A man, boy, I’m not sure, but from the back they seem male. There’s blood on the floor and across their back, and I know it must be one of the monsters from earlier.
I bit down on the inside of my cheek, raise my deadly weapon up, and charge into the room with all intent of slamming it through the back of this monster’s skull. At the last possible moment he turns and stares at me with wide eyes and lets out a scream—a scream! —which in turn makes me scream. I hear pounding coming up the stairs and Dean charges into the room with his baseball bat raised, while me and whoever the heck this other guy is stand there screaming at each other.
“Malcolm?” Dean yells above the noise we’re making.
The guy I presume to be Malcolm stops screaming, and so do I. His mouth turns up into a handsome smile. “Dean? You’re okay?”
The two guys charge each other, wrapping their arms around one another in a manly embrace and leave me feeling stupid and with a very sore throat. They eventually pull out of the embrace to look at me.
“What’s this chick’s problem? She tried to beat me with an umbrella.” Malcolm laughs, but he holds a hand out to show his friendliness. “I’m Malcolm, Dean’s older cousin.”
I take it with a scowl.
“I’m—”
“This is Anne,” Dean interrupts, putting an arm across my shoulder defensively. “And you’re barely older than me, smart-ass.”
“Oh, sorry, bro.” Malcolm smiles at me and then Dean, and Dean pulls me closer to his side. “So, did you see Grandpa yet?” Malcolm says more seriously, and I don’t even have time to correct either boy and let them know that I’m not
with
Dean.
I pull away from Dean, keeping my umbrella clutched to my chest, and scowl at him. “Did you get the keys?” I ask.
“Yeah, I saw Grandpa. I took care of him.” He turns to look at me. “And yeah, I got the keys.”
Malcolm rubs the hair on his chin as he talks. He has a definite bad boy persona coming from him, and I wonder why I’ve never seen him in school before. I let my gaze travel over him, mentally comparing both him and Dean, and then flush in embarrassment that I’m even looking at Malcolm in that way. The world just ended and I’m eyeing up potential boyfriend material. I am such a slut—or that’s what Steph would have said.
“The old bastard tried to eat me.” Malcolm laughs and pulls out some cigarettes. “I came to check that he was okay, what with all the crazy going on, and he chased me around the damn house. I had to kick the dog out into the yard to give him something to chase instead of me.” He laughs, but I can see it’s just an act.
“Trixie?” Dean asks with sadness tingeing his voice.
“Yeah, I think she got away but I was too busy trying to find where he kept his guns to watch for too long. Stupid thing kept yapping at the back door to be let back in, but I haven’t seen her for some time now.” He lights his cigarette and takes a drag. “Aaah, well, at least we can get the hell out of here now, right?”
Dean takes my hand and leads me down the stairs, and Malcolm follows closely behind. When I look back Malcolm is watching me with a smile that I reciprocate. We stop in front of the metal door and Dean relents my hand so that he can unlock it and let us all inside. He reaches back to take my hand in his once he finds the light switch but I pretend that I don’t see it and push past him into the room. I don’t want to keep giving him mixed messages, or Malcolm.
The room actually consists of several small rooms, much like a house underneath a house. With a bathroom, kitchen, bedroom, and living area. There’s also a large storage area that’s plenty stocked with canned food, bottled water, blankets, and weapons.
“Holy crap!” I whisper, my eyes bugging from me. “We could last here for ages,” I say, finally smiling.
“Yeah, I guess Grandpa wasn’t so crazy after all,” Malcolm says.
I turn to look at him, my cheeks flush in excitement from knowing that we can survive here relatively comfortably for a long while. And with two men around for protection, I know that we’re going to be fine. Malcolm finishes his cigarette and stubs it out on the concrete floor and I frown at which he grins and picks up the butt.
“Sorry, old habits,” he says and stashes the butt in his pocket. “I can’t believe he’s been stashing all this stuff. I thought maybe he had a couple of guns, but this is insane. A good insane though.” He chuckles and lets his eyes bore into mine.
Dean wraps his arm around my shoulder again. “See, I told you I’d look after you.” He gestures around him, but for the first time since he helped me at the side of the road, I don’t feel protected. His look has a glint of crazy in it, and the weight of his arm on me makes me want to shudder.
I slink out from under his grasp with a smile, not wanting to upset him and be kicked out, but again, not wanting to give the wrong impression. “You did. And we will all definitely be okay here.”
He doesn’t say anything to me, his smile falling from his face as he looks from me to Malcolm and back again, and then he walks back up the stairs without saying a word. I shudder now—flat-out, full-on shudder. Because him not saying anything is way creepier than him actually voicing his thoughts. At least that I could argue with, but God knows what’s going through that mind of his. I look to Malcolm for a little help or reassurance but he just shrugs and walks back up the stairs also, leaving me alone in this fake little house below a house.
I wonder if I’ve just got into bed with the devil to protect myself, or if I ever had a choice to begin with.
“Water’s running low again,” I say to Dean as I lean out the front door.
He gets up from the swinging chair on the porch with a heavy sigh. “I’m on it.”
He leaves his spot and marches down the three small steps and over to the small barn area. Inside we’ve set up a water collective tank. Actually, it’s another thing that his grandpa had thought of in the event of some crazy emergency like this. It’s a unit that collects the rainwater from the outside and funnels it inside to a purifying tank. The water is cleaned and made safe to drink again. It’s supposed to work on all water, including toilets, etc., but we aren’t that desperate yet. Yet.
The only pain to this is getting the water to the house, since his grandpa set it up in the large shed. I can only think that there had to be a little crazy to go with his brilliance.
Malcolm comes out of the house behind me and offers me a cup of coffee. It’s funny how I never really liked the stuff until the apocalypse. I think it’s more the smell than anything else. It reminds me of Mom and Dad. They always made a fresh percolator-full every morning, and the smell was what I woke up to. Somehow, drinking it makes me feel less homesick. Which I know is ridiculous because my home life was anything but great, but still. It was my home life, and now it’s gone.
We’ve been at the house for almost three weeks, and only once ventured close to town. The place was a mess of dead and undead, and we haven’t been back since. We check the radio every night for any news from the government, but so far nothing. Every once in a while one of the sick people comes across our property and Dean or Malcolm puts them out of their misery.
I can tell that Dean isn’t happy about it though. He doesn’t like killing the people, but he does it for me, to make me feel safe. I know I should feel bad about that, because he’s going against his own morals because of his feelings for me—feelings which are not reciprocated—but I don’t feel bad. I just feel happy that they’re taking care of business and I don’t have to get my hands dirty. I’m just glad to be safe.
Malcolm is different altogether. He doesn’t care about the killing. Some would say he relishes in it. And he’s good at it too. In fact, both boys are fully capable with both close proximity kills and gun use—though they try to not use the guns unless absolutely necessary. Who knew that Dean, the brainbox of our high school, would be so good at killing?
I take a sip of the coffee, breathing in its smell, and close my eyes so I can picture Mom and Dad’s faces. In my head they’re happy and healthy, and of course alive. This disease, infection, whatever it is, came from nowhere. I vaguely remember seeing some news reports on it up until the day of the outbreak in our small part of the world, but I never paid much notice, if I’m honest. You never think these things will actually affect you.
It seemed to hit everywhere at once, as if it was already living inside each of us, incubated and ready to be born. And this thing spreads quickly, from what I remember. Hell, from what I saw happen to our town, I can vouch for that. We still can’t be sure what spreads it. Is it a bite? Direct saliva or blood transference? We know one thing for a hundred percent certainty: death brings death. All three of us have agreed to put each other out of our misery if it happens to us.
“It’s been pretty quiet for a couple of days, huh?” Malcolm says.
“Yeah, I guess.” I look out to the horizon. The sun is beginning to set, casting a beautiful orange glow across the field to the back of the property. To the front we have a couple of vehicles, Dean’s Prius, Malcolm’s motorbike, Grandpa’s truck, and a beat-up red Ford. We found that one abandoned on the road leading up to the house a week back. No one was inside, and all the doors were open. There were bags of clothes and some boxes of food and water, and as much as I felt bad that we took it, deep down I know that the people who were driving that car were dead now.
Malcolm’s hand touches my waist tentatively and I look back over my shoulder at him. He licks his lips and offers me a shy smile.
“Not here, he’ll see,” I whisper nervously, watching as Dean pulls the cart full of water back.
“I don’t see what the problem is if he does,” Malcolm huffs.
“Because he’s very…
protective
of me, and I do not want to leave here,” I snap.
“He’s going to find out sooner or later.”
“Let’s make sure it’s later rather than sooner then.” I glance at him. “Go help him with the water, please,” I add on the end, giving him a smile and hoping that Dean doesn’t see it.
“Fine,” Malcolm says and hands me his cup.
He jogs down the steps toward Dean, and I turn to go back inside. Back in the little kitchen, I search the cupboards for what we will be eating for our supper tonight. It’s funny how quickly you miss the little things like fresh fruit and vegetables. And TV. God, I miss watching TV. I miss watching
America’s Next Top Model
, and often find myself daydreaming about who would have won in the end.
I hear the boys coming back into the house and pulling the large cart of water into the kitchen. They put it into the corner of the room and begin filling the empty water containers with it.
“What’s for dinner?” Dean asks, coming around the counter.
He smiles at me warmly as he comes up behind me to look over my shoulder and into the cupboard. His face is close to mine and I hear him take a deep breath as if breathing me in. I step away from him and move to another cupboard.
“I, uh, thought we could have soup,” I say, grabbing the first can I see.
Dean smiles again. “That sounds lovely. Anything I can do to help?”
He moves closer to me and I glance at Malcolm. He’s scowling, but knows I don’t want him to say anything. He pulls a cigarette out of his pack and lights it up.
“Not in the house, Malcolm,” I say and move away from Dean again, feeling incredibly uncomfortable.
I know I need to do something soon. I’m going to have to tell Dean that I’m not interested, that I actually prefer his cousin to him. I’ve given him all the signals of my disinterest but he’s not taking the hint, and sooner or later Malcolm isn’t going to stand for Dean’s pushiness toward me. Malcolm and I sort of happened in week one. It went very quickly from flirtatious glances to kissing in the dark when Dean was sleeping. I can’t say that it’s serious, but I like him and he likes me. But more than anything, I need him—I need his protection, from the zombies and from Dean’s advances.
I clear my throat and search out a pan, putting it on the stove, and set to opening up the soup. I look out the window and see a zombie coming up the road. It staggers aimlessly from side to side, its gaze at its feet, its shoulders slumped. Its clothes are torn and filthy like a homeless person’s, and I feel a pang of sadness for what this thing once was. A human. A father, more than likely, looking at his age. I wonder if his family made it out alive or if they are dead too.
I look away from the abomination, not bearing to look at it anymore. “Shit, there’s another one.” I point toward the unhuman thing shambling toward the house. “This one looks pretty bad.” I say, looking back at it as it stumbles at the side of the road, falling to its knees with a sickening thud.
“I’m on it,” Malcolm says and I hear his boots stomp off down the hallway. The front door opens and closes, and the sound of Malcolm’s heavy steps descend down the porch steps. I watch the thing for a minute or so struggling to stand back up. It’s back on its feet just in time for Malcolm to reach it and swing a large metal pole, hitting it across its skull. I bite down on my lip and look away with a grimace.
“You okay?” Dean asks, placing a hand on my shoulder.
I jump from his touch, and then laugh softly to hide my nervousness. “Yes, fine. Just this whole apocalypse thing has me on edge.”
I feel his body heat close behind me, and fight the urge to shudder from his closeness. One hand touches my waist, and his mouth is next to my ear.
“You don’t have anything to worry about with me here.” His breath sends shivers down my spine.
“I know that, silly.” I laugh, not wanting to turn around.
“You know I’ll protect you,” he says huskily.
“I do. Both you and Malcolm are great.” I clear my throat, and watch as Malcolm rounds the side of the house and heads toward the zombie.
Dean’s grip tightens on my waist. “Yes, but he’ll just use you. I know how to treat a woman like you. I’ll protect you from everything and everyone.” He spins me around to face him, his body inches from mine. “I’ve seen the way he looks at you, Anne. I can tell him to back off.”
I force out a dry laugh. “Don’t be silly, it’s fine. There’s no harm.” My back is forced up against the stove, and I try to squeeze past him, but he keeps me in place with his grip at my waist.
He stares into my face, his eyes burning holes into mine, and I have the urge to throw up in my mouth when it finally dawns on me that he knows. He knows that there is something going on between me and Malcolm, he just isn’t saying anything yet.
He smiles and takes a step back from me but continues to stare. “Well, if you’re sure.”
I scramble out from my position and reach for the can opener. “Of course I’m sure.” I force my hand to stay steady as I open the can and pour the soup into the pan. My fingers fiddle with the ignition on the stove, but they’re shaking too much to light it.
Dean steps up close behind me again. “Here, let me.”
I move out of the way and let him light it for me. It doesn’t work off the mains, but tanks that his grandpa used, and I know there isn’t much left of them. Soon we’re going to have to go old school and start cooking on fire pits outside—yet another thing I don’t know how to do. Dean stands back proudly, a small flame glowing underneath the pan of soup.
“There you go.” He smiles at me and steps further back so I can stir it.
“Thanks.” I look out the window as I stir, watching as Malcolm drags the zombie by its ankles to the pit where they burn the bodies. “Think he might need some help,” I say to Dean, needing the space from him.
“Sure. I’ll go help him,” he says, punctuating the word
him
, and walks away.
My stomach flips at the sound of his retreating footsteps and I take a deep breath, tears building in my eyes. He’s getting worse, I realize. I know I’m going to have to say something soon. I can’t go on like this.